What I Saw in Lowndes County, Ala Bama

".eeThe leaders of Lowndes County Freedom Organisation(the Black Panther Party= it is running candidates in the next general election with the object of taking over the county?ed.note)are all from Lowndes Couty. There is a thin layer of middleclass negroes, but they are not leaders in the organisation. The leaders are working people who have roots in the commmity, They have suffered the same things that the masses of black people in Lowndes have been sugfering for years- inadequate housing, schools, food -nd clothes. They know what the problems are, and they know how to go about changing things. The median income for negro families is $935. What this means is that the homes sre unpainted, with collapsing porches and not enough room inside. It means little furniture and four er five children to a bed, It means few windows and fewer glass windows. It means getting all the water for cooking and bathing from an outside pump. ‘The children go to broken down one-room schools with inadequate supplies and inferior instruction. hrs.R.L. Stricyland, who is running as Freedom Urganisation candidate for the board of education, told me that the children have to take up school time in the winter to gather wood to heat the school buildings. Their school buses are unheated and often break down because they are in bad repair. brs. Strickland said that one night when her small children did not arrive home from school, she and her husband found them abandoned in the dark in a school bus which had broken down. Eighty-six white families own 90% of the county's land. luch of this is rented out to negroes to farm, But the nuuber of negro families supporting themselyes by farming is declining because the price of cash crops is going down due to the growing mochanisation of farming. Many of the wouen farm while their husbands work, to supplesent the income. From their farm work, they usually get several hundred dollars a year. Most of the negro farms have to-use draft animals. The people in the Freedom Organisation haye one belief which is key to everythic: they are doing, That is the idea that "if we want to make progress, we must rely on ourselves." This becase apparent to me when I went with John Hulett, the chairman, to visit homes in the county, organis ing people to register. At that time the Mississippi March had just been completed. Hr. Hulett said "We are registering the people ourselves- then we won't need any marchers Lhrough here." I noticed... in Lowndes the overwhelming majority of the negroes worked with John tiulett to yet as many people as .ossible registered, iiore important, they are motivated to register because the have their own party to vote for in the autumn=— a party that provides a real alternative to the ra cists, 4s he canvassed the community, Mr. Hulett encouraged people to come to the community meetings. He told them that they could bring up any topics that they wanted to discuss, At the community meetings, someone from the comunity is chairman, At a meeting in Moses Comainuty I attended, they ciscussed plans tor building a playground, a library, outhouses for the church and the purchase of an icebox for the school to keep the chilcren's milk from turnin, sour, i.any of these projects were already well-launched with comsittees working on them. An announcement was made at the meeting that voting machines would be brought to a future meeting so tliat people could lear.. how to use them. At this meeting a collection was taxen which came to $37. This represented big sacrifices for the people there. A Education is carricd on in many different ways. Freedom Organisation leaders and activists are continually canvassing the community, talking to people about what they are trying to do. There are frequent meetings held in various commnities(Lowndes Co. is divided into 21 communities) Here the candidates speak and political cuestions are discussed. These meetin,s usually attract from 175 to 200 people, ae * from 'The Militant!